What's in the box?
Samsung's bundle includes an external mains adapter/transformer with a captive cable that plugs into the rear of the burner. Two mains cables are supplied to connect the adapter/transformer to power - one with a UK-standard three-pin plug, the other a two-pin continental of the sort that fits a UK razor adaptor. At the adapter/transformer end, these cables have figure-of-eight two-pin plugs, rather than PC-standard three-pin kettle-style plugs.
Also in pack are a one-metre USB 2.0 cable, an ultra brief multi-lingual printed setup guide and an auto-running CD for use under Windows - no Mac software is provided.
The CD contains 17 different language-versions of the manual - all in HTML format. That's no fun if you're the sort who reads manuals in bed or on the train, so we'd have preferred a printed manual.
Realising that's too much to ask for in this day and age, we'd at least have wanted a PDF version that could be printed all in one go, rather than only one page at a time like the HTML help, and we remain unconvinced by the move we're seeing towards HTML-only help.
Also on the CD are Nero OEM Suite 6, an installer for DirectX 9 and a set of files/drivers for using the burner in a DOS environment. These DOS files consist of CDSETUP.EXE, ENG.FNT, MSCDEX.EXE and SSCDROM.SYS, plus a read-me explaining how the files all hang together.
The OEM suite isn't the latest and greatest that Nero has to offer but it is, nonetheless, very capable and not lacking anything obvious that we noticed. But more on that later.
Three Verbatim-brand blank discs were included as well - one 16x DVD+R, one 16x DVD-R and one CD-R. The first two mentioned were also LightScribe capable and rated at 1.2x.
Neither the box nor the supplied paperwork says what comes in-pack, so our initial assumption was that these blanks come included as standard. However, we eventually found a list of the drive's supplied goodies hidden away in the on-disc manual in the section headed Features and so realised that the discs had been supplied by Samsung to help us out in our tests. Make the same assumption and any blanks you find inside when you buy will come as a bonus.
Click for larger image
Click for larger image
Many hardware reviews tend to gloss over the installation of supplied software. That's a bit daft because the quality of the installer can make a big difference especially if the user is a novice.
So, check out page five to find out about the Samsung's software installation...